14 DAY TRIAL // Credit card fraud related to a breach at some Chick-fil-A restaurants, which may have lasted for more than a year, has been discovered by several financial institutions in the US.
According to one major credit card association, the intruders had access to the payment systems of Chick-fil-A from December 2, 2013 until September 30, 2014, security blogger Brian Krebs says.
Investigation is still in its early stages
One of the banks that received the alert said that about 9,000 of its customers were affected by the incident and the common denominator was the use of the cards at different locations of the fast-food restaurant.
Chick-fil-A has been notified about a possible breach of their payment systems and said in an official statement on Friday that it was currently “working with leading IT security firms, law enforcement and our payment industry contacts to determine all of the facts.”
According to the company, the first report about the incident was received on December 19, which resulted in deploying an investigation to determine which of the restaurants may have been compromised.
As per their initial reports, payment information has been exposed, although other type of data may also have been accessed without authorization.
Number of compromised locations is unknown
The company assures that none of the impacted customers will be held liable for fraudulent charges to their account; this will be the responsibility of either Chick-fil-A or the financial institution that issued the card.
“If our customers are impacted, we will arrange for free identity protection services, including credit monitoring,” the company added.
It is unclear how many restaurant locations have been affected, but the security blogger says that one bank determined that most of the fraud was concentrated in Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia.
As more details are learned from the investigation, the company will inform the affected individuals and will provide instructions for subscribing to services designed to protect against identity theft.
There are more than 1,850 Chick-fill-A locations in the US and the District of Columbia at the moment. The chain was founded in 1946 and it is one of the few restaurants that is closed for business on Sundays, as the culture of the company is strongly influenced by its founder’s religious beliefs.
